Climate of The Twin Cities - General Climatology

General Climatology

On the Köppen climate classification scale, the Twin Cities is located near the transition of the hot (Dfa) and warm (Dfb) within the humid continental climate zone, but fits the criteria to be classified Dfa. The continental climate refers to the large amounts of land mass and absence of large body of water that surrounds the region. The humid portions derives from the humid air masses that routinely flow northwards towards the region from the Gulf of Mexico. A feature of the humid continental climate in the United States is that weather can be unpredictable with extremes occurring in many phases of measurements. For example, the Twin Cities has a hotter all time record high temperature of 108 °F (42 °C) than the entire state of Florida, despite being located nearly 1000 miles farther from the equator. Conversely, temperature during the winter months are colder in the Twin Cities than in any other major metropolitan area in the continental United States, and are indeed colder than Anchorage, Alaska, which is around 1,000 miles closer to the North Pole. The Twin Cities can also experience droughts, floods, and on average is windier than The Windy City, Chicago, Illinois.